“Yes,” added Fred. “We stove in the boat when we tried to land. The waves were a million feet high.”
“How high?” laughed John.
“Well, they were pretty nearly ten feet anyway.”
“That’s about as near as you get to things, isn’t it?” remarked John.
“Well, you know what I mean.”
“I don’t care what you mean as long as you’re both safe. The captain was afraid you might capsize.”
“You mean he was afraid we would be capsized,” retorted Fred.
“May be that was it. At all events he was afraid you would go into the water and he knew you couldn’t take care of yourselves if you did.”
“Hello,” exclaimed John abruptly. “Here comes our recent host. I wonder what he wants now.”
As he spoke John pointed toward the shore from which the man in whose house they recently found refuge was seen approaching in a skiff. Just where his boat had been kept was not plain to either of the boys. There was no boathouse on the shore and few places where the craft might have been sheltered.